Opening a new salon

[Laceybella]

hi, I am currently looking into taking over a salon in Doncaster ... it has 4 dressing stations , 3 of which I will be looking to rent out , there is a nail station and a beauty room , which I would be looking to rent out also, if anyone could give any advice on what the "going rate" is , that would be a great help.

I would also appreciate any advice on opening up a salon fir the first time , I have been hairdressing in a salon for over 10 years , but this will be a first for me .

thanks sarah

 

[AcidPerm]

I strongly advise that only sign a contract once you have a detailed business plan in place and can easily cover 6 months rent from your own savings. As with most things, preparation is key!

Are you thinking of charging a flat daily rate or a percentage of their takings?

Do you already have experience of managing a salon for someone else and of managing staff? A lot of excellent hairdressers go into this thinking, ‘I’ll cover my rent by renting out a couple of chairs’ but with no real understanding of what they’re letting themselves in for.
Are you good with finance, will you need to rely on an accountant?
How are you at dealing with awkward clients? Remember the buck stops with you.

https://www.salongeek.com/threads/hmrc-guidelines-for-determining-self-employment.295298/
This guide helps explains how self employment for chair rentals works. Remember, as the salon owner, you are just their landlady and have no authority to tell the chair renter how to run their own little business situated within your salon.
If they choose to set their cut and colour prices at half what you want to charge, they can do and you can’t stop them. If you try to impose your own rules you risk prosecution from HMRC.

If you have any specific queries, there are lots of very experienced geeks on here willing to help advise and support you.

Lots of luck with your new venture.

 

[TheDuchess]

Hi Sarah, I'd be very cautious if I were you. You need a team to take over this salon. Find someone you can work with, who wants this just as much as you.

Otherwise I'd suggest taking over a salon where you are already working with an established client base and team of people that want to work with you.

Or set up smaller with a less ambitious offering.

As a beauty salon owner, one of the difficulties that I have had is understanding that I have what it takes to develop a business, so I can rent a space without a client base and find that clients just "find" me, becoming busy quite quickly. But I can bring someone else into this space with me and give them new enquiries only to find that their columns just don't fill as easily as mine.

Another learning curve was that clients and staff don't like change. I relocated my salon a very short distance and it was appalling how much custom I lost in 3 months. It took me over a year to get back to where I had been. I've had to completely reimagine my business.

So my advice is gamble on yourself, but don't make the mistake of thinking that there will be other people out there with your drive and determination who can make things work. If you can cover all the bills yourself with enough over to live on, go for it, but if you need to make a profit on other people's efforts in order to cover the overhead you could find yourself in trouble. I make huge sums of money, but all of it goes on overhead. For my business set up I really need 2 of me and I haven't found my clone yet!

 

[Laceybella]

thankyou to you both ! I really appreciate your advice and you have given me a lot to think about , thankyou

 

[RED STAR]

I’ll echo all of the above....
It’s incredibly hard to find good staff to employ - it seems so many in this industry favour self employment, which doesn’t suit my remit.
Since opening my salon, I’ve had a few enquires for chair rental - but not as many as you’d expect - as I guess why pay a rent when you can have your own little set up at home!
The rental cost is usually the price of an average cut & finish in your area .... that would be around £40.00 a day here...... but remember all that goes with it.....
Use of all your facilities
Wear & tear
Beverage’s
Toilet/reception area/back wash
Key to you premises
The potential for them to ‘sub-let’ and they get to set their own prices - they could undercut what you yourself choose to charge!

 

[C.R]

Agree with all the above comments. Make sure you are able to cover all overheads yourself,and have enough to live on, that’s what I prepared for when I opened up last year, so then any extra income from rental will be a bonus. I opened in December, and it’s taken all this time (with a huge amount of advertising and marketing) to get my 2 rooms and another chair filled, I have had so many time wasters along the way, some real eye openers also, finding the right kind of people to rent has proven to be my biggest obstacle x